A scenario

You’re an atheist of around retirement age. You’ve been fortunate enough to have been in a position to promote free thought, humanism, skepticism and so forth for most of your life.

And while you’ve never been in the position to actually experience on the receiving end, the impact wrought upon those atheists and other Others – those more vulnerable than you ever were – you’ve helped people. You really have.

You’ve got a good reputation, maybe even a legacy.

You have fans. Loyal fans. Tribal fans.

For most of your life, you’ve had it said that you’re a nice individual. Admittedly, not from pitchfork-wielding types, but at least from progressives. This matters to you. You’re a progressive.

This is in essence, what you see when you look back at your life. It’s what you pride yourself on because frankly, it’s all you have!

Things change.

The world around you changes.

Things become a bit more open on the scene. Either owing to the collapse of divisions between class, or creed or international borders or whatever, more players come onto the board.

New grounds emerge where you have no history. No legacy.

Many of these new players are seeing you for the first time. Many have never had the benefit of your legacy.

Many have nothing to thank you for and no track record by which to judge you as being nice. Many have no reason to even consider you at all – if they need something that you provide, they’ve long since been able to do without you providing it.

They can provide for themselves, even if cooperation may seem at first glances to be desirable.

Imagine, not that it should be hard, that you are caught in some internecine war of words with other prominent atheists. Imagine that you don’t chose your words carefully. Imagine that it’s not the tone that’s the problem – you’re nice after all – but the substance that people are questioning.

Allegedly a trimmed quote here, supposedly an out of context citation there and a string of complaints that you’re committing the bare assertion fallacy when levelling charges against your opponent.

Pish! Your atheist interlocutor is guilty of X! And all your followers, all of those grateful for your years of service to the cause, know it’s true.

Everyone knows! Don’t be silly.

Why would someone like you lead people astray? How could someone like you lead people astray?

You’re the great Mr/Mrs Nice! You wouldn’t have got the reputation if you were so unpleasant as to make spurious accusations!

But then one of these new sorts comes along. One from over the back fence in a part of the now interconnected community that you’ve never established yourself in. One of these new sorts that you don’t have a track record with.

They allege that in this spat match of yours, that one of your accusations has overshot its mark and landed square in your new neighbour’s lap. They aren’t at all happy about it.

Your accusation, overshooting its mark, has been instrumental in establishing a stereotype “over the fence”. A stereotype that allegedly smears atheists as being guilty of whatever it is you’re accusing your political opponents of.

How do you deal with this?

Do you cite your track record as the great Mr/Mrs Nice? Do you cite all the things you’ve done for the cause, albeit not in a way that has effected your new neighbour?

Do you expect them to recognise your contribution and your quality of character?

What do you do when they add you to their list of people who haven’t helped, but have caused them harm? What do you do when you’re effectively added to the list of Hagees, Robertsons and Falwells of their part of the world – all of those who’ve birthed pejorative myths about the godless?

This incident, this overshooting the mark and “over the fence” is the first interaction you’ve had with these particular atheists.

Do you expect people to fall into line, do you pretend that your behaviour isn’t in question, do you give excuses, do you give a non-apology or do you admit that you screwed up and set about fixing the damage?

Or do you just not give a shit anymore? Or did you ever give a shit in the first place? Was it all about your own little kingdom, and your own grandiose reputation all along?

So much for Mr/Mrs Nice if that’s the case!

~ Bruce